Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019
David's right, we won't reach a definitive answer on this one.
Rodney's right, it's easy to confuse a definition of music with a qualitative judgement.
So next question: what would we gain by having a rock-solid definition?
Suppose we agreed that Shakespeare's Hamlet is not music and a five year old singing Mary Had a Little Lamb is. What have we accomplished with this distinction?
Don't get me wrong: I'm a great believer in definitions and in qualitative judgements. It's just important to distinguish between them. There is a lot of music that I have limited interest in, and a lot of other things that fascinate me no end.
On an entirely unrelated subject, the potential beauty of a term like Cultivated Music is only manifest when it is inclusive of things that lie outside the Western canon, and therefore can be applied Haydn, Feldman, and Sun Ra. Otherwise, there would be no point in using a new term: we may as well stick with Classical if we're just trying to pin down the same thing that's been pinned down all along.
posted by Lawrence Dillon
7:21 PM
